The Mini Project Has Evolved - HAED QS Clara Progress

Many of you know that recently my enthusiasm for my current cross stitch projects was waned. In order to coax it back to life I worked on a few mini projects, which helped tremendously. In fact it was so successful I decided to move onto QS Clara.

Now I know that at over 50,000 stitches I can not claim that this piece is in any way 'mini', but compared to some of Heaven and Earth Designs new super sized charts Clara is positively tiny. When I began this chart I decided to stitch the black outline first and then fill in the colour. This has been the trick to how I have managed to work on this while staying in a mini mentality.

Each section of colour filled in feels like little finish, which builds on the piece as a whole. So when I sit down to work on this, instead of feeling overwhelmed with how much is left, I just concentrate on the little piece currently being stitched. It has worked really well and I am having a lot of fun with it.

HAED QS Clara - Hannah Lynn Disney

Anyone who has stitched a Hannah Lynn pattern knows that the hair is almost pure confetti, which makes it very time consuming. Working each section individually has made it much more manageable. I am still working on my Somebunny to love mini at lunch time and for those situations where Clara would be too unwieldy.

This piece is also a great example of a parking method I use, which I call parking by feature. It may have another name but I have never come across it. This is a technique I use to avoid lines appearing between columns and I find it also breaks down the chart into more manageable chunks.

Have no idea what I mean by parking? Check out my tutorial for the column method: Parking Tutorial

I will be posting a tutorial on my park by feature method in the near future, however if you have any questions or suggestions please leave a comment below.

Help Prevent Cross Stitch Miscounts: Gridding Tutorial

Today I want to talk a bit about fabric gridding. This is a tutorial I have been planning on doing for a long time. In my opinion, gridding is a must for stitching complex patterns and is also extremely useful if you use the parking technique.

You can find my parking tutorial here


What is Gridding?

Gridding is the process of dividing a piece of fabric into 10x10 stitch blocks corresponding to the divisions on a cross stitch pattern, which helps prevent counting errors. In patterns where there are a large number of colour changes and very compact stitches, counting errors happen often and are difficult to fix due to the size and density of the stitching.

Gridding is one of the techniques that I saw referred to a lot when I first started stitching Heaven and Earth Design (HAED) patterns. HAED patterns are large, complex charts which have high detail but are often stitched on a small count fabric, such as over 1 on 25ct or 28ct. My first attempt progressed at a snail's pace because I frequently missed stitches, requiring a lot of backtracking. When I began gridding, all that changed.


What to use to grid your fabric:

Some stitcher's sew the grid onto the fabric but I found it aggravating to try to avoid catching the gridding threads under my stitching . Instead I use a washable fabric marker, which I find quicker and easier. For this method you need; fabric cut to size, a washable fabric marker, a ruler (below is a seam gauge, but an ordinary ruler or tape measure will work) and a pin.

Griding Supplies

If you are  nervous about using a marker on fabric, here are 3 tips.

First: Make sure the marker you choose is washable. Fade over time markers generally vanish too quickly, which would lead to re-gridding your fabric multiple times. When you start gridding, please make sure the pen you are using is your WASHABLE marker.

Second: Test your chosen marker on a piece of scrap fabric and try washing it out. Some need a bit of a warm wash to remove them. If cold water doesn't work, try heating the water slightly.

Third: Do not use the fabric marker on hand dyed fabrics unless you are certain they are colour fast. Also it is difficult to know how the marker might react with the fabric dyes.

The Method:

I usually grid fabric by pattern page rather than doing the whole piece at once. I have found that over time and with repeated handling the washable marker will start to fade slightly.

Start by laying the fabric on a flat surface and make sure that you are comfortable. After a while it can be difficult count the holes in the fabric, so I often I use a pin to help me.

Step 1: Measure your fabric border. For large pieces I plan to frame, I leave 3 inches excess on all sides. Measure in 3 inches from the upper left and the same from the top and mark these points on your fabric.

Measure in three inches from the left

Mark this on your fabric

Measure 3 inches from the top

Mark this on your fabric

Step 2: Mark where the two measurements intersect.

Mark where the two measurements meet

Step 3: Count across 10 strands of fabric and draw a line on the 10th strand, marking the last column in the first 10x10 block. Just estimate how long the page is and draw this line to there, it can be made longer later if necessary. When I grid a piece I like to mark the border for the first page but this isn't necessary.

Count across 10 strands from where you marked your fabric

Draw in your page edge line and your first grid line

Step 4: Count across the next ten strands and draw the line on the 10th as above.

Count across your next 10 strands for your second grid line

Draw in your second grid line the same as the first

Step 5: Repeat this for the number of columns on the page. 

Step 6: Add an additional 1 or 2 columns to make subsequent pages easier to grid.

Continue on until you have marked in all your grid lines plus a couple extra for the next page

Step 7: Count the first 10 strands down marking the 10th as before. Carry on the line past the last of the vertical columns. Here I have inserted the line indicating the top of the page.

Count down ten strands and mark in your first horizontal grid line, mark the border at the top of the page if you wish

Draw your lines a little past the last vertical grid line to make continuing the grid for the next page easier

Step 8: Continue in the same fashion for the number of rows on the page

Here shows that my vertical lines where a bit short so I simply drew them a bit longer to finish gridding the page

Step 9: Add an additional 1 or 2 rows to make subsequent pages easier to grid.

First page is now fully gridded with some extra rows and columns to make subsequent gridding easier

As can be seen in the image above, I have continued the lines past the grid for page one. This makes gridding subsequent pages straightforward. You simply continue the lines for rows or columns, which halves the amount of counting.

Now you are ready to start stitching

I hope this has been helpful. If anyone has any difficulty with the tutorial, suggestions or tips please leave me a comment at the bottom of the post.

YOTA Kinda

Well unfortunately this month I have nothing to show you on my Bunnies or Elegance of the Orient. However in an attempt to make some head way on a few half finished projects that have been neglected for far too long I decided to finish off a long forgotten project.

Some of my readers will remember these four pieces I did as a gift for someone:

I had promised them that I would finish these so that they could have a muslin bag filled with something scented in them. However I have been putting off stitching up the muslin bags for an absolute age. I'm sure the recipiant has probably forgotten they are getting these. So I finally pulled out my machine and got stitching on the muslin bags. After a bit of trial and error I finally got them stitched up.

So here they are:

They are now ready to be filled with some nice potpourri or some essential oil scented rice. I am so delighted to finally get these finished up as it has been bothering me for a long time that they haven't been done.

I'm YOTA-less but.....

... I have a good reason. I was planning on doing some work on Majestic Peacock this weekend but I ended up spending a large amount of time trying to get my sewing machine to co-operate so I could do a few finishes which have been waiting for almost a year!!!

Needless to say my machine was very grumpy and I'm still fairly new to sewing machines so it took a long time of cleaning, adjusting tension, stitch size and changing needles, to finally manage to get it to do what I wanted.

This is going to be a picture heavy post. I had four small Maria Diaz floral pieces that I stitched and the recipient wanted them made into the hanging ornaments with the opening at the back for a scented pouch to be put inside. I finally did the last two at the weekend:

As I am still learning to finish things off this way, or any way really I would normally put my pieces in a frame, I did a few experiments with these four so some may look a bit off but I think I finally have the technique down. I took lots of photos of the process so I will do up a tutorial if you like.

Here are all four together:

I now just have to stitch 4 muslin bags and do the rice and lavender mixture for inside.

I have also been considering doing YOTA again next year. Let me know if anyone would be interested in it, if not I might do it anyway for myself. If you don't know what YOTA is go to the tab at the top of the blog for an explanation.

Parking Tutorial

Ok so I realise I promised this ages ago, but I did finally manage to get around to doing it. This is a picture heavy post. Also this is the way I find it easiest to do parking other people may find other ways much more efficient.

Ok here we go. When I stitch HAED patterns I stitch in 10x10 blocks in vertical rows. This means I stitch all the stitches in a 10x10 block and then move down to the next block below it. As I stitch each colour I 'park' or leave the thread in the place where that colour is next in the block below.

First lets have a look at two blocks of chart

Chart

As the 0 symbol on this chart is metallic I am leaving it til the end so I have skipped those but normally I would start with whatever colour was first in the top left of the block. Therefore here I started with the second colour the ) symbol

Here I have underlined all of this symbol in this block for you to see.

The red mark in the next block down shows where I will park my thread. So I stitch all the stitches with that symbol in that bock.

My four stitches of that colour tent stitched

Then I park that colour in the bottom left of where it next occurs in the next block down. It doesn't really matter in which corner you decide to park your thread just so long as you are consistent or you will get very mixed up.

First Parked Thread

Then I move onto the next colour. The stitches I have just done are now coloured in green so I know which stitches I have stitched. I have underlined the next stitches to be done in this block.

I now stitch all these stitches and park the thread where that symbol occurs, I have marked in red, in the next block down.

Two colours, stitched and parked

I continue on as such, working my way through each of the colours until the entire block is done and I have all my threads parked in the next block.

Completed Block

 I will then start on the next block beginning with whatever thread is parked on the first row to the left of the block. This way if I have parked them correctly all I have to do is stitch whatever symbols corresponds to the symbol where the thread is parked. I do not need to check the colour number for any of that particular symbol in that block, unless I run out of the piece of thread. Once I have stitched all the parked threads I then add in any additional colours there may be in this block that were not in the proceeding block.

I really hope this makes sense and is helpful, if not please do let me know and I will change it. If you need any further help please do not hesitate to e-mail me: [email protected]